The Towels are Kinda Scratchy!
by NPeaches
Summary: Edward and Bella decide to go on a little adventure...Cute little one-shot...


_A/N: Just a pointless piece of E&B fluff. I was bored. But I still like it…_

This place was a far cry from home. I don't know what really made me decide to go on a road trip with Edward. Okay, maybe it was his downright sexy looks and his charming, all-too-easy-to-comply-with-his-every-wish smile. But other than that, I don't really know what made me do it.

Edward and I were completely different people. I mean, yeah, we had done that whole known each other from when we were two, shared baths together, and went to the same Mommy and Me classes, but ever since we reached the 4th grade, we never really spoke.

He was the quiet, brooding, artsy type, and I was…well, I didn't really fall into any category. I never really fit, which made me perfect for my best friend, Angela, who basically felt the same way as me. We clicked right when she moved to Forks.

We enjoyed doing weird things that set us apart from other girls our own age. We tee-peed houses, while other girls had sleepovers. We watched the Super Bowl while other girls went out for mani-pedis. We also had really philosophical discussions over tortilla chips dipped in salsa sauce (we never ate the actual vegetables, because they were the worst part of the salsa), while other girls complained about how their split ends were out of control, and how they worried that so-and-so didn't like them.

Of course, over the years, I always observed Edward from afar. Sometimes I'd see him bent over some sheet of paper, totally immersed in whatever he was doing. At times I caught myself just openly staring at him at lunch, spacing out while he pushed his overgrown bronze hair out of his eyes, hunched at his table. He always sat alone, but he didn't really seem to mind.

Lunch time wasn't the only time I watched him, though. It just so happened that he lived across the street from me, and ever since the beginning of this year, senior year, I had noticed that he often forgot to close the blinds of his bedroom window. Now, don't think I'm some kind of stalker creep, because I'm not. I may not be like most girls, but I can still appreciate a good view when it's offered to me, albeit inadvertently and unwillingly on the part of the object of my all-too-frequent stares.

I mean, who could ignore the stellar bod that he's managed to build up when he's not writing the novel that he supposedly works on every day (or maybe it's a rather large sonnet cycle about an unattainable, beautifully chunky woman named Beatrice)? Who knew that a writer could have a six-pack?

Anyway, the week that my grand escape from Forks occurred happened to be the night of our senior prom. Call it cliché, but it wasn't really planned that way. Of course, as you might assume, I was not really that into going to prom, and not only because no one had asked me. I just think the whole concept is ridiculous and trite.

Angela didn't agree. She managed to snag a shorty named Ben as a boyfriend about six months ago, and they were all for going to prom together. That made me kinda pissed at her, because what was I going to do all night long with no one to eat tortilla chips and salsa sauce with and bash those superficial and skanky girls who were all going to lose their virginity that night?

But I didn't say anything, because she was super excited about the whole thing. I mean SUPER-DUPER excited. She started shopping three months in advance for all her promwear, and the worst thing was that she dragged me along to all the stores in Port Angeles with her, forcing me to spend excruciating hours in tiny waiting rooms and pretend to be interested in the sequin-covered, satin monstrosities that she tried on.

I sure was going to be glad when this whole prom shindig was over with.

The night of prom was a particularly lonely one for me. My dad was out on a hunting trip with some of his buddies, so I had the house to myself. I had set up an entire array of comfort food on the coffee table in front of the TV, which was packed full of the shows I'd DVRed specifically for this night. I changed into my "Boys are stupid throw rocks at them" pajama bottoms from David and Goliath and my RENT T-shirt that I got from the time Angela and I saw a rendition of RENT in Seattle.

I was fully prepared for a night of singing along with "The Sound of Music" and watching hours of recorded episodes of "House."

I had reached the scene where Maria was in the Mother Superior's office, bemoaning her problems of falling in love with her employer when she had already pledged her heart eternally to Jesus, and Peggy Wood started singing "Climb Every Mountain" in her extremely high-pitched voice when I heard a tap on my front door.

I had absolutely no idea who it could be, seeing as everyone I knew was at prom tonight. I hadn't been expecting anyone, and I was so surprised. At first I had the fleeting thought that it would be some robber-slash-rapist, but then it occurred to me that someone like that wouldn't actually knock on my door to gain entry to my house.

I spoke through the door, "Who is it?"

"Umm…" spoke a voice that I hadn't heard in so long, and it had changed so much since I had last heard it, that at first I honestly didn't recognize it. "It's…Edward Cullen."

Edward Cullen? What the—

I swung open the door, just staring at him blankly in my surprise. I guess my expression was funny, or something, because I heard him emit a faint chuckle when he saw me.

"Wha-what are you doing here?" I said quite impolitely.

"Well, I heard that you weren't going to prom tonight, so I figured you'd be kinda lonely." He learned around my frame and glanced at the TV. "The Sound of Music. Nice choice. I always suspected there was something off about Christopher Plummer. I mean, what straight man knows the Austrian folk dance like the back of his own hand?"

"Umm…yeah." What was Edward Cullen doing at my door in the middle of prom night, lightly discussing the Captain Von Trapp's gayness?

I continued to stare at him like a moron, and the most awkwardest of awkward silences ensued, in which he chuckled nervously and I gaped at him.

After a minute or two, he started to turn away. "Um…sorry for bothering you. I guess boys really are stupid," he said, gesturing to my pants. "Just please don't throw rocks at me."

I came back to myself instantly. "S-sorry," I stammered. "You just surprised me a little. Come on in."

"Ooookay," he said. He stepped inside, and saw my feast, half-devoured. "I guess you've been having your own party over here." He sunk into the couch and grabbed a handful of mini-marshmallows.

I cautiously lowered myself down next to him, still kind of gawking at him. He, fortunately, seemed a little impervious to my staring, or at least he just ignored it.

He continued his easy banter about the movie, going on about how Julie Andrews was a disgrace to all nuns, like those nuns who make out or something in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, because she decided that she would rather enjoy a sex life instead of just pining after the unattainable Jesus, like all nuns do.

I'm sure that the saliva dripping from my open, gaping pie hole could have satiated the thirst of all the starving children the Africa the way it refused to close. I could not get over the surprise of having Edward Cullen—detached, artistic, aloof, and basically anti-social Edward Cullen—on my couch in the middle of the night, discussing all things Sound of Music, from the oldness of the Mother Superior to the squeakiness of Kurt's voice in his finally "Good NIGHT!"

This was beyond bizarre.

I interrupted his ranting. "Sorry, but I still don't know what you're doing here."

He sighed. "It's just…listen…I know we barely know each other anymore. I mean, the last time we really talked, it was pretty much just as awkward as it is now. I know we drifted apart for most of our lives. But, truth be told, I miss building sand castles at the beach and making mud pies and just…hanging out in general. And since this is a good opportunity to be alone, I figured it's a nice time for catching up. So…Bella Swan, what's new in your life?"

We talked for about two hours about nothing and everything. I found out that what he writes all the time at lunch is music, not dramatic love poems for Jenny Craig's new spokesperson (_darn it!_).

I told him about what I've been up to in the past seven or eight years. He laughed when he heard about the pranks Angela and I had pulled ("I'd always pegged you as the mischievous type," he'd said, his face split into an adorable grin), and he looked empathetic when I described to him about not having any friends before Angela showed up. I guess he really did understand what that was about.

I asked him why he had never made any friends all the time that we were in school. He answered with a simple "They were all assholes," which I totally agreed with. He explained that everyone always thought he was strange, and at that moment more than any other, I kind of saw how we were more alike than I'd thought before. We were both social pariahs in a way, repelling all humankind that had a single normal gene in them.

And I realized then that he was way more fun to hang out with than any other kid in my grade; maybe besides for Angela. We shared in interest in many of the same things, especially musicals—he'd sworn to me that he was the ultimate fan of RENT, and I argued that I surely had to be, until I found out that he had actually gone as far as to hunt Anthony Rapp down at his hotel room and demand an autograph for his RENT soundtrack CD. I officially handed over the stalker/greatest-RENT-fan stick to him.

We both hated the vegetables in salsa. We both had an unhealthy love for James Bond and Indiana Jones. We both loved to sit on a hammock on a sunny day and just read until the sun went down. We both knew some form of martial arts. We both were not ashamed of having loved Harry Potter when were kids.

Spending this short amount of time just talking to him kind of made my heart ache for all the time I wasted that I could have spent getting to know Edward. Not only was he incredibly sexy, but he was a musician, and we had so much in common that I had never realized before.

These thoughts succeeded in depressing me a bit, but I didn't show it, because I thought Edward might misinterpret it as me not having a good time, and then he might leave.

After three hours of just talking, I began to feel a little restless. I felt the sudden urge to just jump up and DO something. I felt an excitement bubble up inside me. I looked over at Edward with what could only have been perceived as a maniacal glint in my eye and cut him off at the start of what would have been a very promising discussion about George Bush's many slip-ups and just-put-my-foot-in-my-mouth-already moments by saying, "Hey, do you want to do something?"

"Something…like what?" he asked, with a little bit of a hopeful glint in his own eyes.

"I don't know. But I feel like we should be doing something more…I don't know…fun. I mean, catching up has been incredibly fun, but…come on. You KNOW you want to do something other than discuss the national debt. It's prom night, and if we're not actually _going_ to prom, don't you thing we should do _something_?"

"Hmmm…well…I do have my dad's Mastercard for the night…. We could do pretty much anything with that…" he replied.

"Why do you have your dad's credit card?"

He looked kind of embarrassed.

"Well, umm…you know my parents must worry about my being all anti-social and having no friends and all, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, I think my parents were kind of hoping I'd be going to prom tonight, and that I'd—ahem—meet someone…and do something and go somewhere with them that would require the use of a credit card…"

I felt myself flush a little at this. "Oh," I said, rather eloquently, if I do say so myself. Why did the idea of him "meeting" someone bother me so much? And why did it make me quite so…flustered?

"Hey," he said, getting my attention back to the issue at hand. "So, what do you want to do?"

"Um, do you want to go somewhere?"

"Sure. We could go see a movie, or something."

"No," I said quietly. "I'm kinda sick of movies at the moment. We could just…um, maybe drive around and talk some more?"

"That's good," he said, but he looked like he had something else up his sleeves. "Or we could actually GO somewhere, you know, like out of Forks."

He flashed that breath-taking smile at me, and I found myself unable to say no. "Sounds awesome," I said, and I smiled for the first time in weeks. "Let me just leave a note for my dad and pack a few things."

He agreed and ran over to his house to back a small bag, as well. I wrote on a Star Wars theme Post-it that Charlie had picked up from the CVS a couple days ago that I was staying at Angela's house when she got back from prom, and that I'd probably stay for the whole next day. I didn't know where I was going with Edward, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time to do whatever it was we were doing.

I ran across the street and jumped into Edward's shiny silver Volvo, which a had equipped with a number of necessities: Sour Patch Kids, Nestle Toll House cookie dough (because who actually cooks those things, and doesn't eat them right out of the package?), toilet paper, Red Bull, and a wide range of CDs (your standard Fall Out Boy, to the slightly outlandish Bayside, to completely girly Kelly Clarkson, and of course the RENT soundtrack).

This was one strange person I had decided to spend the night with, but I could not think now of a better person, one who shared my wacky interests and insanely impulsive actions. He showed up with a bag slightly bigger than mine, and I wondered if I had underestimated the extent of his plans for us tonight.

Well, whatever. I was in the mood for an adventure, and I needed one NOW.

We drove past all the shops in town, not stopping at all until we had crossed the town border. He pulled over at the shoulder of the highway, turned to me and asked, "Where to, m'lady?"

I laughed at this slightly strange endearment and said, "I don't know. Just keep driving and I'll tell you when to stop."

So we drove. And while we drove, we talked, or we sang along with all the songs on the CDs. I was surprised at how well Edward could imitate Kelly Clarkson, and I made a mental note to give him a hard time about that later.

About three and half hours later, we stopped in Bellevue, a city about fifteen minutes away from Seattle. The thing that most drew us to this city was mainly the fact that it shared the name of a well-known mental institution, and frankly, we found that to be freakin' hilarious.

Oddly enough, the first place that we came upon when we entered the great city of Bellevue was a cheap and shabby motel. I blushed darkly when I saw it, and then even more when Edward turned into the parking lot. I looked at Edward questioningly and he said, "Oh, come on. Don't you want to see if there will be a sketchy guy behind the counter who will try to discourage us from buying a room because it's in a dead zone, and then will tell us that the towels are kinda scratchy?"

He didn't even seem fazed at all by the fact that we had pulled into a motel. I guess he just wasn't having the same thoughts as me. Lord, I needed to calm down.

"Um, sure, sounds like fun. Let's do it." I jumped from the car and almost ran to the door that would undoubtedly jingle when we walked through it. I heard Edward's quiet chuckle behind me, and I figured that I should look a little less eager to walk into a motel with him.

I slowed my pace, and we walked through the door (and yes, if you'll believe it, it actually _jingled_). I stifled a laugh, and Edward and I walked up to the front desk where a tired and disheveled old man greeted us.

"Lookin' to be put up for the night, eh?" he said, blinking back and forth between us suggestively.

Edward smiled and put his arm around my shoulders. My heart jolted a little. "We sure are," he said, his voice all dandy, like he was checking into a five star hotel with his new trophy wife, and not stopping in a dingy motel with little old me.

"Yep," I said, playing along. "We would like your best room please."

I swear to GOD the guy gave me one of those creeper rapist looks and said, "Why, of course, anything for the young lady." He raised an eyebrow. I really expected him to say, "Just warning you, the rats might rape you during the night!" That's how creepy he was. I even saw Edward giving him a scathing look. Hmm…that was kinda strange.

"How about room 12?" Creepy Old Guy asked.

"Sounds good," Edward said.

Wait. WHAT?

We were actually _staying_ there? When did we decide _that_?

Not that I really minded. Just, what exactly was Edward thinking?

Before I had time to say anything, though, Edward grabbed the key from Creepy Old Guy's hand and steered us up the stairs (no elevator) to our room. I was pretty much shell-shocked, so I didn't say anything as we climbed the creaky steps.

When we reached the room, we stood quietly for a moment. I registered the fact that Edward's arm was still around me, and I felt this electric current running through my shoulders where he was touching me.

And then suddenly, he seemed to come to himself, cleared his throat, and removed his arm from around my shoulders. I felt a strange absence when he did that. We stood there really awkwardly, just like when he had first showed up at my house. I moved to sit on the bed.

I patted the spot next to me, and he came over, giving me a strange look.

"What are we really doing here, Edward?" I asked, with more than a hint of suspicion in my voice.

He seemed to lighten up at once. "We're just here to have a good time," he said.

My heart gave a hopeful lurch at that statement.

I suddenly grew enough metaphorical balls to say, "Oh? And what kind of fun do you have in mind?"

I saw a hint of pink in his cheeks. This was the first time I had ever seen Edward blush. Wow. He still looked beautiful. I wish I could look like that when I blushed. God, he had all the luck.

He didn't answer right away, and wondered if what I was thinking was on his mind. No. Impossible. He couldn't _possibly_….

He looked up at me through his lashes. How does he even do that? I never realized people could actually do that, but he somehow managed it. Whenever I tried to do it, I looked like I was trying to see my eyebrows like poor Patrick.

"Well," he said. "Whatever kind of fun you want us to have." He smirked at me, and my breath caught.

Was he serious?

At that moment, I couldn't stand any more of the bullshit. I had to ask myself, and him, for that matter, what was really going on between us.

I knew that I definitely felt something for him. In the entire night that we had spent together, I felt like I knew him enough to even make up for all those lost years.

The only thing left to find out was how he felt about me. "Oh, really? You mean, like _this_ kind of fun?"

And I leaned in really fast and planted a swift kiss on his lips.

He looked at me with piercing green eyes that were suddenly hooded with something. I couldn't tell exactly what it was.

But I guess I figured it out when, at that second, he swooped in and captured my lips in another kiss. At first he was a little hesitant, his lips only touching mine lightly, but I pressed mine much more firmly against his own, and he took over from there. His hands were suddenly in my hair, pulling my face hard against his.

Our lips moved his sync, mine pulling at his lower one. My hands rested on his well-defined chest, and I heard an embarrassing moan escape me. I guess that encouraged him, because the next moment he was flicking his tongue along my upper lip. I opened up my mouth wider, letting his tongue in.

I was practically quivering in excitement at that point. Our tongues danced together, and his hands started moving lower, running over my shoulders and down my sides, gripping my waist tightly in his large hands. He attacked my neck with his lips, and I could feel my own lips tingling with the same electricity I had felt earlier when he had simply had his arm draped around me.

This was definitely the best night of my life.

"You know," I lilted, as he continued doing wonderful things to my neck, "Creepy Old Guy gave us this room for the whole night…"

He groaned loudly and pulled my lips back to his forcefully. "Don't I know it," he said. And then he threw me into the middle of the hard, lumpy motel bed.

And without going into all the gory details, let's just say the rats didn't steal my virginity on prom night before my new boyfriend got a chance to.


End file.
